Religious Right Eyes Turf In N.y. Elections

School Boards Seen As Springboard

NEW YORK — In its first major foray into local elections here, Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition is seeing mixed results at the ballot box. But even before the returns were in, it was clear that the coalition and its "pro-family" agenda has made a significant political impact.

New York is the largest, and perhaps one of the most liberal, cities yet to be targeted by the religious Right, but it is only the latest municipality to feel the effects of a national grass-roots effort to elect candidates sympathetic to conservative Christian values, whether they are running for City Hall, the state house or the White House.

The religious Right already has had some success in local and state elections, notably in California, where it won control of three San Diego school boards; in Iowa, where it helped defeat an Equal Rights Amendment; and in Colorado and Florida, where it contributed to the defeat of gay-rights proposals.

Nonetheless, its effort in New York City took many liberal organizations by surprise.

"I did not expect the Christian Coalition and the religious Right to target New York," said Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "I thought that happens `out there,' but it happened here. They're a player. We'll monitor them and respond accordingly."

The Virginia-based Christian Coalition and other like-minded groups have increased their activity in local elections since the Republican Party, whose national platform encompassed many of their goals, lost the White House in November.

"This is all part of a well-coordinated national campaign by a dozen televangelists and large, conservative organizations . . . to get involved at the local level," said Chip Berlet, an analyst who tracks such groups for Political Research Associates, a non-profit research group in Cambridge, Mass.

No winning side has emerged in the skirmish between the religious Right and liberals that has electrified the normally humdrum school board elections, but early returns show that Robertson's group has managed to elect many of its favored candidates.

Garnering the support of more than 1,300 churches and synagogues, Robertson's group also forged an unusual alliance with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, which distributed a coalition-produced voter's guide to more than 200 of its churches.

"It's not unprecedented. We've worked with the Christian Coalition in the past," said Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the archdiocese, which inspected and approved the voter guides before distributing them. He said the church and the coalition found themselves on the same side in several school-centered issues, such as condom distribution.

The elections were held against the backdrop of a bitterly fractious academic year that has seen parents and school boards engulfed in battles over AIDS education, condom distribution in schools and a proposed curriculum that included teaching tolerance of homosexual lifestyles and culminated in the ouster of Schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez.

The coalition's campaign and the get-out-the-vote response it galvanized among liberal groups helped boost voter turnout to 12.5 percent, up from 7 percent four years ago and the strongest turnout in 20 years.

Liberals and conservatives scored victories. While liberals cheered the first election of three openly gay candidates and the first election of a minority member in one Queens district, conservatives made inroads in some liberal strongholds.

"We're very encouraged," said Rev. J. Terry Twerell, founder of the coalition's fledgling New York chapter and pastor of The Living Word Christian Center in lower Manhattan.

On Friday, with results for 28 of the 32 districts, between 55 and 60 candidates supportive of the coalition's agenda had won, according to Jeff Baran, executive director of the group's New York state organization.

Twerell maintained his group had not been banking on a major sweep. "The truth is, all we're trying to do is get representation at all levels of government equal to our grass-roots strength," he said.

He said the coalition has begun thinking about its strategy for the city council and mayoral races this fall.

All the 600 candidates running for 288 seats on the 32 nine-member district school boards were sent questionnaires by the coalition. It said 159 replied and their responses were published in a voter's guide.

Twerell estimated about 130 candidates were identified as supportive of the coalition's positions. About 550,000 guides were distributed before the election, he said.

In the three years since the Christian Coalition was founded, such guides have become more frequent. They have ranged from 40 million distributed through 860 chapters in 50 states for the November election to smaller printings prepared for local races, such as the mayoral contests in Rockford and Belvidere, Ill.